


From Across the Stars

by sasstasticmad



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens, Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, The Force Awakens - Fandom, The Last Jedi, star wars episode IX
Genre: Angst, Armband Kink, Canon Universe, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Mutual Pining, Scar Worship, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-29 23:56:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17817950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sasstasticmad/pseuds/sasstasticmad
Summary: The scar is faded now, but unmistakable.Two hands reaching for each other across the stars.(aka the armband fic nobody asked for)





	From Across the Stars

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on tumblr.  
> The armband pics are everything. This one-shot wrote itself.
> 
> As always, let me know what you think. As always, bug me on tumblr-mygrandmathinksimsassy- where I will be reblogging stuff about the armband for the foreseeable future.

She was never supposed to go back to the desert.

Her life began the day she left Jakku, the day she stole a ship and made a friend and watched another die.

The day he found her. The day she left a scar.

She’s seen entire worlds now, planets that she only ever imagined when she had strength enough to dream, and it doesn’t matter that she’s a nomad, only passing through until there’s nowhere left to hide, she misses them even if they were never hers to miss.

Green forests. Purple skies.

Luxuries she may never see again.

Rey adjusts the staff across her back as she scours the empty marshes and the scar on her arm throbs beneath her leather arm band, aggravated in the light of two unfeeling suns. There’s a lump in the bottom of her stomach, weighing her down until she’s almost sinking in the sands, and there is no point in fighting it so she follows where it leads.

She is doomed to roam the desert.

This is where she was always meant to die.

—

She finds him as the suns set.  
He was waiting to be found.

He is flanked by his disciples, all dressed in black. Shadows gathered to finish what their master had begun.

The Force flickers in the waning light, flashes of darkness shimmering now that the Knights are free to hunt. 

They are all in masks, but she could find him even without sight. 

The Force radiates from his cloak, from his fingertips, and Ben or Kylo or whatever name he’s called when he lingers in her dreams, is so brilliant, so alive that she could have found him a thousand systems away.

It calls to her, singing in a voice so sweet tears nearly fall from her eyes, and it is agony to ignore it, to close her ears as she buries herself in the sand.

She’s close enough to spy, but not close enough to listen. Unable to ignore the growing dread as the row of soldiers circles around their general.

The darkness hisses in her ear, and she pulls her staff from its holster. Even if Poe said this was only an intelligence mission. Even if Finn made her promise she wouldn’t get herself hurt.

There are shouts, the sounds of weapons being drawn. 

And then they are upon him.

She is halfway down the dunes, staff unfurled to reveal the crystal hidden inside, when he crumbles to his knees. 

Her heart stops and the Force, the light and darkness, all at once scream his name. Her voice, her body, is only a vessel and she is running, running so fast, that the fear that had stowed away to Tatooine is incapable of keeping up. 

She reaches an arm out, focusing all of her energy on the locusts straight ahead. Her head is throbbing and her blood is boiling and she lets herself sink to the depths she worked so hard to climb out of, to wield the darkness just as readily as she uses the light.

The Force is a weapon, exploding like a cannon, and the shadows collapse to the ground.

The Knights were too enamored with their sacrifice. They did not expect the pain.

She is depleted, an empty shell, but the light soars as he scrambles to his feet, as he tears his saber from his belt and cuts down the unfortunate soul that stood closest to where he fell.

The Knights are rising now, unforgiving in their pursuit of vengeance. A flash of white and a flash of red are all that stand between them and their destruction, but her spirit rejoices with each new blow, and she is powerful, indestructible with each movement of her staff. 

Ben is there.

Rey cannot be afraid. 

They fight together as they once did, as she once hoped they would do for the rest of their lives, and it is the only thing she was ever meant to do, the reason the Force ever claimed her as a home. His back is against hers, hot and sturdy and strong, and her body molds to his, imperfect parts forming a perfect being.

The fight is over before it even starts. The screams are silent and she hears his breathing, heavy and labored, beneath the mask. Her body aches with the weight of a thousand galaxies, the Force itself balancing on her head, but she will endure it if it means an end like this. 

They are face to face now and it doesn’t matter that he’s hidden; she can feel him, can feel his eyes locked on her as though it were the first they met. 

Her knees buckle as she falls just like the others and he might even say her name when she gives in to collapse. 

She will get to be remembered.  
At least hers won’t be a pauper’s grave.

—

She needs to stop waking up on his ship.

The air is filled with the copper tang of blood and it’s only when she sits up that she realizes it’s her own.

The side of her head is coated in it sticky and saturated, as the remainder paints her neck,. This is the first time she’s worn this tunic and it’s already destroyed, the linen drenched in her blood.

Red staining the white. Flowers blooming in the snow.

She’s on a bench, not an altar. There are no restraints around her limbs and her mind is still cloudy, but it is completely her own. Her staff is on the floor just beside her resting place, as though she set it down before falling asleep. She is a guest, not a prisoner, but there is no sign of her host.

She is not quite so weak. The Force is calmer, kinder now that she saved its other servant, and it won’t be long before she finds the strength to run away. 

Running away is easy, she thinks.  
It’s missing him that’s hard. 

The door opens as though she willed it and Ben comes back into the room with a cloth in his hands. 

He is silent as he sits down on the bench across from hers and quieter still as he pulls off the mask. He sets it on the floor, dusty and abandoned and he is only Ben again. 

Only a man.  
Nothing but flesh and blood.

It’s been a year since they breathed the same air, trapped in an elevator with her hands bound behind her back and his mouth so close to hers, but he’s aged a decade since he stole the mantle of the galaxy from Snoke’s shoulders. 

The Supreme Leader.  
Long may he reign.

He watches her and she watches right back, taking in the dark circles, the strands of gray that hadn’t been there the last time. 

A scavenger can look at a king. 

Rey will look as long as she wants.

He leans forward to offer the cloth, and she doesn’t mean to flinch, but it doesn’t change the fact that she does. Ben looks taken aback, almost hurt, and it’s hard to say what pains her more, the wound already festering on her face or the guilt that comes with the mournful expression in his eyes. 

“I’m not going to kill you.”

He reaches for his belt and puts his saber on the ground between them, right beside where he’s already placed her staff. 

“You showed me mercy once,” he says solemnly. “A debt for a debt.”

She nods and takes the cloth from his gloved hand. 

“A debt for a debt.”

She applies the cloth to her temple. It’s cold, but the cold is welcome, and within seconds, it starts to soothe. 

“I put some Bacta on it,” Ben tells her. “It’s not much, but it should stop any infection before it starts.” 

She should thank him, but she doesn’t, still unsure even in the midst of their détente. 

“Is there a med droid in your camp? You’ll need stitches.”

His voice is steady, but there is worry hidden in every word. His face is drawn, clammy like he was the one to bleed and she’s overcome with the urge to soothe him, a need so strong that her better judgment demands she stomp it down.

“I was just going to get a needle and do it myself.” She’s snarling, but her fangs are bared. “A med droid? Why didn’t I think of that?”

The corners of his mouth curl up and there’s almost a smile on his lips. 

He’s almost smiled at her before. It’s been months, but she still clings to the memory. 

They’re frozen like that, savoring the uneasy peace, until she inspects the cloth he brought her. The blood is drying and the Bacta is gone and it’s only now that she remembers that she has a job to do. 

The Resistance sent her to find him. She cannot let herself forget.

“Why did they try to kill you?”

The ghost of a smile disappears.

“They should have tried harder.” Ben’s voice is frosty, but there is anger in his eyes. “I know how to stay alive.”

A flash of a memory leaps out of his head, unable to be contained. These people, the ones who nearly brought him down, were once his friends.

Now he stands alone.

“It looked like you forgot,” she says. “What would have happened if I hadn’t been there?”

A galaxy without him in it. She had once celebrated the thought. 

Now it sends a shiver down her spine. 

“You were there,” Ben says quietly. “That’s what matters.”

He is gentle, a whisper of twilight in the morning dawn, and she leans in closer to bask in his glow. There is color in his cheeks, made brighter by the pink of his lips and scar.

His eyes dart down to her arm, to the leather band she’s worn since the Resistance fled Crait. 

“What happened there?” 

The band is locked in place, but she covers it with her palm. 

“It’s nothing,” Rey insists. “Just a scrape.”

“It doesn’t sound like nothing. I can take a look at it if you want. There’s more Bacta on the ship.”

Her hand is frozen on her arm and if she weren’t staring quite so intently, she might not notice how Ben’s shoulders slump. 

“You don’t have to show me if you don’t want to,” he tells her. “I just want you to make sure you’re alright before you leave.”

He sounds the way he did long ago, billions of miles away on the other side of a fire, and unwrapping the band is the easiest decision she’s ever made. 

He knows now that she will always have to leave him. It breaks her heart that he’s right. 

She balls the leather in her first and waits for Ben’s inspection, waits for him to realize what she went to such great lengths to hide.

It’s faded now, but unmistakable. 

Two hands reaching for each other across the stars.

Her doom tattooed to her skin. 

She studies Ben as he takes it all in and her breathing stops as another one of his memories dances across her mind. 

Two figures bathed in firelight. Their fingers are linked and there is hope flowing in their veins, hope for a tomorrow that never came to be. They look at each other as though nobody else existed, seeing the universe together for the first time, and a lump catches in her throat as Ben looks at her the very same way.

They’re even further now. There’s only the end in sight.

His eyes are on her when he slides the glove from his hand and then he’s exposed, bare and needy and waiting for her permission. 

She nods and slowly, carefully, he brings his fingers to her scar. Pleasure, hot and languid, bubbles with every trace of his fingers on her skin and she will burst any second now, held together only by his embrace. 

“It’s beautiful.”

He looks back up at her and there is worship in his eyes. 

“You are beautiful, Rey.”

She moves in even closer, guiding her hand to the mark she left so long ago. She is shaking, why is she shaking, until she touches his face for the first time. His scar sings underneath her skin and he is holy, the Force itself carved into divine flesh, as he leans into her palm. 

“You are too.”

The suns have long since set, but she is nowhere close to leaving.

\--  
Her heart is in the desert. 

This is always where she was meant to be.


End file.
